Gender equality: What’s All The Fuss About?

Gender equality has been a topic of debate for a long time. We often seek to reach a balance by asking for ‘equal’ rights for women- promotions at work, same pay, right to dignity at domestic and professional fronts, etc. The most vociferous protests are still ongoing in the contemporary world against women’s sexual exploitation within and outside of family boundaries; within and outside of commercial structures; and within and outside of professional frameworks.
 Where we have not entirely failed as human society overall, we have not achieved much success in this direction either, despite the cosmetic dressing up. Could the main reason be that as a human race we have not understood the physiological and psychological similarities between the two genders, and focused only on the differences? I think so.   
In every person there is a combination of male and female, based on the science of conception.
The first stage of recognising gender equality is to accept that there is a dominant female and subordinate male in a woman, and a dominant male and a subordinate female in every man, barring exceptions of course. There are examples where a woman might exhibit pronounced male traits in her mannerisms, for instance; and a man might express his enhanced feminine side instinctively.
Apart from the fact that both men and women live and face the same ups and downs in life, a woman could be taller than a man, or a man can be more emotionally resilient. The so-called femininity and masculinity traits are characteristically interchangeable. Both are born of the male and female union, both are capable of leading a successful socio-political life, or also be equally anti socio-spiritual, so to say. A woman is seen as kind and loving in the domestic roles of a mother, sister, daughter, wife but is also seen as being tough in the role of an administrator, a politician or entrepreneur. Similarly, a man could be kind and humble in his personal relationships, yet, be tough and shrewd in making business decisions. Both genders have claimed records in the criminal and degenerative psychosis too.
As a society, we self-trained our minds to perceive the two genders as the ‘stronger sex’ and the ‘weaker sex’. Though we moved to replace the term ‘weaker’ sex to calling it the ‘fairer’ sex. Therefore, we remained stagnant despite the claims of progression, till very recently when some real work has gone into it. However, a lot outstands to be shown and learned. We need the key of understanding to unlock our minds first.
I have noticed tough women being called names, such as ‘bossy’ or ‘nag’, and men who maintain dapper looks being assumed to be gay. We need to learn to refrain from placing people in the pigeon holes.
There is no need for women to change their looks to fit in to a male dominating areas of occupations. Wear your make-up, skirts, high heels with pride. Equally, men should not deprive themselves from self-grooming- using moisturisers or visiting a beauty parlour regularly. Do not  mis-represent yourselves. Be a strong character, but not an actor.
True gender equality could co-exist by not over simplifying the matter based on external sexual countenance, nor by over complicating the issue of equality by making it a war between two genders.
There is negative equality and positive equality. Negativity is created when men might try to hide their feminine side, and women try to pretend to look more masculine. Positive equality is to strive for equal rights- in marriage, at work, in society, and above all, in our outlook.
Lastly, let’s not blame the religions either for our opinionated beliefs- WE made religions and thus, it’s our responsibility to carry on reshaping them till the environment around is conducive to healthier and peaceful life. 
In this article, I am not discussing the various sexual preferences, but only touching on the mainframe issue of equality between the man and the woman.
Peace be upon the humankind.